Rita Wilson once said that awareness is empowering the un-served people; while they say that knowledge is power and power is knowledge. Awareness thus is the key to empowerment of the ignored, abused, unprivileged and poor segments of our society and mass communication and mass affinity is a tool to awareness of rights.
-- South Asian nations keen to embrace 3G spectrum
Experts are of the view that poverty and exploitation in South Asia region goes unabated due to the lack of knowledge of basic human rights and the misuse of power and authority vis-à-vis the people at grass roots level. Broadband is another predominant tool to attain knowledge and this service is getting strength in South Asia by the each passing day to facilitate the people at large on provision of information of all types.
International information technology experts gathered here in the federal capital from April 26 to April 27, 2010 to discuss the reasons of low level of awareness in South Asia and to strategies as to how the information technology could contribute to this issue. The two-day moot was titled "Expert Forum on Mobile 2.0 Applications and Conditions", was arranged by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) in collaboration with LIRNEasia, Sri Lanka, and comprised of four sessions followed by panel discussion among the key participants of the event. Researchers and regulatory agencies representatives from Sri Lanka, Kenya, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, India, Philippines, Bhutan and other countries gave presentations on different topics based on the theme "Beyond Voice".
The experts concluded that the policy makers and service and application providers of South Asian countries should focus on strategies for the improvement of broadband penetration in the region. There must be multiple approaches to deal with the issues faced by the Information Communication Technologies (ICT) industry so that the usage of mobile phones "beyond voice" should be encouraged, they added.
During the sessions of the forum, speakers and presenters explored the different aspects of the theme and shared their own experiences and presented various case studies. The topics covered in these sessions included Easing Payments, Making Markets Efficient, M-Government, M-commerce, M-social networking, Conditions for Mobile 2.0, Market Entry, Success story of Mobile Number Portability (MNP)in Pakistan and Quality of Service (QoS) Experiences. A panel discussion moderated by Chairman PTA was conducted to review the proceedings and findings of the whole forum. The participants of the forum appreciated PTA applications and suggested that these should be introduced by other countries as well.
Addressing the participants, Rohan Samarajiva, PhD Chair & CEO LIRNEasia, was of the view that internet use was very low in most slum areas of South Asia which was a major hurdle in empowering the poor. Quoting the details of surveys conducted by his company, Samarajiva said most people from poor segments did not even hear the name of internet; however, they were aware of mobile phone. "Since India, Pakistan, Bangladesh & Sri Lanka are offering lowest call rates, it would be better to provide the phone users with broadband service. So we have to go for broadband as moving beyond voice is the key," he added.
It may be mentioned that Mobile 2.0 describes the next wave of mobile usage use of mobiles for "more-than-voice". Mobiles are increasingly becoming payment devices which can also send, process or receive voice, text and images. Use and awareness of Mobile 2.0 applications among Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP) users is still poor.
Addressing the Opening Session of the Forum, Minister in charge MoIT, Sardar Muhammad Latif Khosa said it was time for the technology to be used for bringing peace in the region. "Let the peace rein in the South Asia region, erasing all the borders and obstacles. Let prudence prevail and let technology usher peace and amity in South East Asia. Let us erase the barriers of hate, strife and let peace get strengthened. India and Pakistan should follow China as to how Chinese government spent on human resource development and in return the masses contributed to the national development," he remarked. Khosa went further, saying that wars can't win hearts and minds. "Lots of blood has already been wasted and we have to move for peace for our future generations," he added.
He said that the telecom sector of Asia has shaped in such a way that it has become exemplary even for the West, however, their remains a dearth of research and learning activities among ourselves.
He said it is hoped that such efforts would go a long way in building stronger relationships among countries and providing a platform for sharing each other's experience and learn from them.
Khosa said that the Government of Pakistan has been taking keen interest in the development and growth of the telecom sector and is taking every possible step to take it to even better position. He said that PTA has a pivotal role in the achievements of telecom sector of Pakistan.
Chairman PTA Dr Mohammed Yaseen, in his welcoming address, said that Mobile 2.0 Conditions and Applications is an appealing subject especially in case of Pakistan where local mobile sector has been revolutionised in less than half a decade with the less than a million subscribers in 2004 and today we are standing at 97 million and would be hitting 100 million subscribers in another 3 to 4 months.
He said "beyond voice" is an area on which globally countries are working in order to increase their revenues. He said that since Pakistan's mobile Voice market has become quite mature we are also looking towards beyond voice zones now. "We would like to utilise the work of the participants while devising our own strategies for improving data services and beyond," he added.
President Mobilink Rashid Khan was of the view that innovative solutions to emerging IT challenges was a key to take Pakistan to new arena of modern technology. He welcomed the government initiative for cut in taxes on telecom sector, saying these had helped the telecom sector boost its revenues a lot. Mr Khan said his company was focusing on launching value-added services for the next fiscal year. "We are launching Mobile Commerce (M Commerce) under which we would introduce the concept of Branchless Banking. This would enable the consumers to have the experience of paying utility bills, opening and usage of bank accounts through cell phones, and national and international remittances," he added.
During the moot, the participants also paid tributes to the PTA for focusing on the production of local content which they said was a must for the industry to jump into the 3G or 4G LT technology. Dr Yaseen said the PTA, in collaboration with local IT universities and R&D Fund was ensuring that quality local content is produced so that it could benefit the people at large. The moot continued on 27th April 2010 comprising four sessions followed by panel discussion among the key participants of the event.
It would be pertinent to mention here that in 2008, only 10 percent of the Pakistan BoP knew about the financial services available in mobile platform. Awareness ratings of m-government and m-health services were lower. Actual usage of any of these services was by less than one percent. Still as their economic constraints lessen, it is likely that they will gradually increase their communication-related spending. Instead of paying for fat pipes to connect their homes to a host of entertainment and data services (quadruple play) most of them will invest in new terminal devices and applications that would improve their communicative interactions in the Mobile 2.0 framework, incrementally increasing the amounts paid for the communication services they currently consume.
In Pakistan, the cellular mobile sector has been showing tremendous growth trends due to an increase in the number of mobile operators and wide network coverage. Currently, the mobile tele-density in the country is 58.7% which shows ample use of basic mobile phone services by the subscribers. Now, the operators are keen to explore new opportunities in the mobile market. The telecom experts believe that it is an ideal time to shift our focus from Voice to the introduction of innovative local contents and applications. We have seen PTA on different forums, emphasising on this aspect not only to sustain the development of the sector but also to benefit the telecom users through these innovations.
The congregation of international IT experts in Islamabad would go a long way in promotion of IT industry in Pakistan. It is also pertinent to mention here that this sitting of international experts occurred after a long time in the country, especially in the backdrop of the low turn ups by the IT & Telecom sector during the recent years.